Lost & Found
by blueincandescence
Summary: Bruce and Natasha missed their window in more ways than one, but they come back to each other prepared to start a relationship. An angst-fluff post-AOU reunion fic that explores an AU MCU where earned happiness is a thing that happens for Bruce and Natasha sooner rather than later.
1. Misery, Company

**LOST AND FOUND**

 **a Bruce Banner & Natasha Romanoff fic**

 **from** _ **Lullabies for Selfsame Monsters**_

 **by blueincandescence**

— • —

 **Chapter One: Misery, Company**

— • —

 **Prompt — 8/1/15 jenalope** — If you're still taking prompts, post AOU Tony and Nat are the two most effected by Bruce's escape act. Both being similar in that they have a very small circle or friends/support/people they trust. Some sort of confrontation between the two (good/bad/sappy/uplifting whatever works). I just love Bruce's relationship with both of these characters and would love to see how you interpret them interacting while grieving Bruce's absence. Thanks! And it's nice to see pro brucenat blogs as lovely as yours

 **Continuity —** Post-AOU, Pre-speculative CA:CV — Follows AOU canon, basically.

 **Rating — Teen**

 **Note —** This was such a great prompt, jenalope! It ended up a mad mesh of good/bad/sappy/uplifting that I hope works for you! Originally part of Experimental Design, but it got long and multi-part-ish.

•

They had it out on the Helicarrier.

Around the main conference table, Natasha gave her debrief, detached and professional. No edits, no editorializing. Just did her job.

Clint spoke first. "Jesus, Nat. I'm sorry." The regret in his voice sent a tremor through her hands.

"I want to hear that from her." The blazing recrimination behind Tony's words made her snap up to meet his glare.

Several voices spoke up to quiet him, but Natasha lifted her hand. The tremors had stilled. "Let him get it out."

Tony's face twisted into something ugly, irresistible. "Tell me, Ms. Moral High Ground, before you threw Bruce down a well, did you get that he only came for you? Did that even register?"

"We needed him. You'd have done the same thing."

With sneer, Tony leaned across the table. "I would've left out the kiss, Judas."

More protests, but they were nothing but background noise. Natasha stood, leaned into Tony's wrath, calmed herself in it.

"And when you didn't need him, you just let him go. One word from you, and I could have followed him before he got out of sight."

"He made a choice." Her voice was as flat as her expression. "I respected that."

"Really? 'Cause it sounds to me like you made a choice."

Those words were a release. Natasha sat back down. "Yes. I did."

"Are you even capable of remorse?"

"Layoff, Stark," Clint said, and Steve said, "Take a breath, both of you."

Tony walked away, looked back twice. Natasha lost his glare around a corner and wrung her hands underneath the table.

•

The first time he reached out, it was the middle of the night.

The sudden, harsh buzz of her phone yanked Natasha from a deep, mindless sleep she'd paid for in sweat and aching muscles. Sitting up, she drew her legs to her chest and cradled her phone against them. The display read 'Private Number.' Her chest constricted so tight she gave up breathing. She swiped to answer and leaned in as she brought the phone to her ear.

The line was all tense silence. Her breath came out in a gasp that she sucked back, eleven days worth of compressed tight emotion threatening to escape her lips. Movement on the other end sent a rush of white hot fear through her.

"Bruce." A command, a plea. That son of a bitch. She was so sorry.

The movement stopped. "No," said another man's voice. "It's Tony."

Numbness followed adrenaline, the sudden shift turning her blood to ice. "What the hell do you want?"

"I had a question." Tony sounded petulant. "I guess you answered it." Tony sounded lost. Ever the goddamn child.

The echo of Tony's voice grated on her nerves. 'Was she even capable?' "Yeah, I miss him." Natasha sounded vindicated. She sounded broken.

"I knew that. Misery, company. That whole thing."

"That whole thing," she agreed. "Go to sleep, Tony." Natasha hung up, head on her knees.

•

The first time she reached out, it was sunset.

Tony was on the roof of what, when all was said and done, would be the New Avengers Facility. He was winding down a conversation with a contractor when Natasha approached him.

They gravitated to the edge of the roof. He was looking out over the construction. She was watching the red of the sunset for a flash of green. What she wouldn't give to have Bruce's voice in her ear, atmospheric refraction that and scattering effects this.

"What made you call me that night?" Natasha asked from the safety of two months out.

Tony put his hands in his suit pockets. "There was this equation we couldn't get right. We'd go back to it whenever we needed a brain break from whatever else we were blowing up. I'd just figured it out." Awe weighed down by guilt. Bruce was gone, and they were moving forward. "We were at our most brilliant in the middle of the night. And that's saying something."

A long moment later, Natasha said, "I miss him at sunset." She missed him all the time, but that went without saying.

"I get it. All those times he left to watch the sunset. I thought it was some suicide attempt recovery thing — cherish each day, that sort of deal. And he was sneaking off to see you." Tony put on an air of disapproval, belied by the soft smile he gave her.

"We were working on the lullaby." The urge was still there to protect what she and Bruce had, keep it close to her chest.

"And you love your work." The side-eye Natasha gave him slid right off of Tony. "You and Bruce have that in common. Me, too." Said in the present tense, said like a blessing. The Tony Stark seal of approval.

Despite the patented self-aggrandizing, Natasha found she could appreciate the sentiment, that stab of hope it inspired.

•

They had it out at the Tower.

Natasha would have been fine leaving things as they were. Not Tony. He needed to dig and prod and examine. At least he gave her a drink first.

"I owe you an apology."

"You really don't." There was a postcard folded and tucked away in her jacket pocket. She had come here feeling generous.

"Don't start being nice to me now, Romanoff."

She spun the ice in her glass. "You needed someone else to blame."

"And what did you need? Someone else to hate?" He took a sip. "Besides yourself, I mean."

Natasha fixed him with a look, then downed her drink.

"I get self-loathing," Tony said. "That's another thing the three of us all have in common."

She unstoppered the vodka and reached over the bar for two clean sifters. She pushed one toward him, forcing him to take it neat.

Tony grimaced but lifted his drink in a toast. "For the record, I never believed it was your fault that Bruce left us. And I'm halfway to believing that you are, in fact, a human being with real, human emotions."

Natasha flashed teeth. "I'm feeling the full range of human annoyance right now. For example," she added, tone genial enough.

They clinked glasses and drank.

Tony put down his sifter and hers. "Come on up to Candyland." He ushered Natasha toward the stairs. "That formula I cracked? The upshot is, I can give your Widow's Bite a gigavolt of power with no added bulk and only a point-zero-five chance of your death by electrocution."

"A gigavolt," Natasha said, skeptical but interested enough to enter the lab. "I could zap through a tank with that."

Tony waggled his eyebrows, and unveiled the prototype. "I think I can rustle up a tank for us, if you're game."

"What, and miss another bang up Saturday night at the Facility?" Her expression went dead serious. "Please and thank you."

There was very little sarcasm behind Tony's laugh.

She ran her fingertips over the blueprint for her new gauntlets, trailing the scratches and loops of Bruce's handwriting the way she had on the postcard. Natasha missed Bruce more in Tony's company, that was definitely true. But it was a better, fuller kind of missing.

— • —

Bruce turned forty-six on the eighteenth of December. On the nineteenth, he gave in.

He took a ferry to the Big Island and bought a laptop. He spent several hours rigging up a VPN that would keep FRIDAY none the wiser, and then logged on with to his Tower access. Through the security feed, he saw that his suite of rooms was as unchanged as his passwords. The labs were empty.

What had he expected?

Sipping bottomless glasses of fresh lime juice and munching on yams, Bruce turned to the files Tony was sharing with what had been dubbed the New Avengers Facility. He read the roster, and Natasha's always entertaining assessments.

It was close to sunset when he finally felt prepared enough to open his inbox. Hundreds of messages, articles, and videos. Most were from Tony, a handful from Betty and Leonard, and the rest from Natasha. The most recent video had been posted yesterday.

Bruce's finger hovered over the play button but slammed the screen closed instead. He found a hotel with decent wifi and tried again in privacy.

Tony's grin filled the entire screen. "Happy birthday, you old, miserable so-and-so. This is a video about everything you're missing. Your favorite brunch spot, your favorite filmhouse. In the wee hours of the morning, I finished one of your prototypes without you and tested it this afternoon without you." The shot pulled back to reveal Tony in a tux. "I'm going so far as to take in an opera just to spite you. And I'm escorting your girl."

"Happy birthday, Bruce." It was only her voice, but he had to close his eyes anyway. He scrolled back just to listen to those five syllables again and again.

Her hand draped over Tony's shoulder, and he put his arm around her middle out of frame. "I'm not even going to show you how stunning she looks. Whoever said redheads shouldn't wear red — my God, were they wrong."

Natasha snorted. A wry but pleased snort. At something Tony said. She pushed him aside and stood in his place. Tony's warning hadn't been adequate to describe just how much of a shock to Bruce's system the sight of her was.

He paused the video. Her hair had grown out to her shoulders and the sleek curls were pinned away from her face, which was more flawless than ever. There was a bloom in her cheeks, a light in her eyes. Her smile was an invitation that made his lungs constrict.

Swallowing, he pressed play again. A flash of green caught his eye — she was wearing a red-gold necklace with an emerald center.

"I got your latest postcard last week, and I sent a message back. That makes nine." The corners of her mouth tucked up, and he was already making plans for a tenth. How he was still — ever, even — a contributing factor to the happiness of such a woman, Bruce would never know. "I'm here when you're ready. I can't promise I won't make you suffer a little, which you'll no doubt take comfort in. But I'll be here."

Tony mugged for the camera. "You turned the Black Widow into mush, and none of us knew. Clearly, your whole 'tortured nerd' game has grown too strong for this world. You must turn yourself in."

Natasha smirked and walked away from the camera in a way that made his pulse jump. She blew a kiss over her shoulder. Bruce gulped, and wondered about the content of some of those other videos.

His view was blocked by Tony, once again in close up. "Bottom line, buddy, we miss you. And if your disappearing act was all an elaborate scheme to get the two most important people in your life to stop hating on each other, guess what — it worked. You can come home."

Bruce felt a rumble in the back of his mind. 'Almost, Big Guy,' he thought. 'We're almost there.'

"But I have to warn you," Tony was saying. "Your plan might have worked better than you intended. Nat has elevated our penchant for workplace explosions into a true artform."

Natasha, pouring two drinks in the background, put on a French accent. "This artiste would like to thank her bountiful patron for the neverending supply of, how you say, good shit to blow to high heaven."

"Hear that? You never complimented me. I might like her better than you, Banner. Let that sink in. Think about the potential consequences. Think about what you've done. Then watch this 'Happy birthday, Bruce, minus Bruce' supercut and miss us like crazy. Toodles."

Bruce pressed pause again and did as instructed. As it sunk in how much trouble he was in for upon his return, he put his head in his hands and laughed until he cried and didn't worry for a second about turning green with anything but envy.

— • —


	2. Gathering Intel

**LOST AND FOUND**

 **a Bruce Banner & Natasha Romanoff fic**

 **from** _ **Lullabies for Selfsame Monsters**_

 **by blueincandescence**

— • —

 **Chapter Two: Gathering Intel**

— • —

 _ **Prompt**_ **— 7/31/15** **Anon —** Brutasha prompt: smutty fic where Bruce comes back to the team after AOU

 _ **Prompt**_ **—** **8/11/15 Anon —** I absolutely love your 'Misery, Company' chapter in the 'Experimental Design' one shots. The characterisation is perfect and everything else about it is too; it was very sad but I laughed a lot too. I would love you to continue it so much if doing so ever appealed!

 **Continuity —** A weird and wonderful AU where everything works out great after the events of _Captain America: Civil War._

 _ **Notes —**_ Welp, since this is now longer than a one-shot, it gets its own fic! Sorry for being all anal about organizing these things; it makes me happy, at any rate. Warning: this puppy goes from mild angst to fluffy fluff in no time flat, so watch out for whiplash.

— • —

Three fingers at work organizing data on a tablet, Natasha navigated the identical winding hallways of the Facility on autopilot. The meetings today had gone as well as could be expected considering it was Tony's first day back at the Facility since the fallout from the Accords. Tense but cathartic, especially with Sam ordering Tony and Steve to hug it out every other minute. More essentially, they'd managed to solidify their roster. Mostly.

Arriving at her suite, Natasha raised a hand to the scanner, still typing with her thumb.

"How do you do that?" Peter asked her in passing.

She could smell that his suit was singed, but she wasn't even going to ask. She smirked instead, not taking her eyes off the tablet. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

He reversed his trajectory and launched himself at the wall, skittering over to crouch on her door. "Four-day weekend," he enthused.

The speed was remarkable, never mind the agility, but Natasha didn't bat an eyelash. The egos around here made training them a simple three-step process: act unimpressed; watch them bend over backward to impress her; save the world. She placed one finger in the middle of Peter's forehead. She swung the door open through him, saying, "That had better not be sticky."

The door wasn't quite closed when Peter muttered something-something 'sticky' that was as nonsensical as she'd expect from a seventeen year-old virgin. With her foot, she slammed door the rest of the way shut and was satisfied to hear a thump.

Her roster looked solid, but there were a few gaps, one of them very large and very irreplaceable. Another was an Asgardian Xena, who Thor had promised along with another archive's worth of information on the Infinity Stones. No news was bad news when it wasn't coming from any of the other Nine Realms —

In the half-a-second scan of her rooms she'd done on reflex, something had jumped out as out of place. Straining her hearing but finding only silence, she edged further inside and spotted the difference immediately. Sticking out from the refrigerator in her kitchenette, a postcard had been wedged in the seam.

Natasha snatched the postcard down, flipping over the photograph of a woodsy scene to read the back — a New York address and 'Wish you were here' in Bruce's charming scrawl.

For a full ninety seconds, Natasha went blank. A sound snapped her out of it; the sound, she realized, of her hand muscles twitching against thick, glossy paper. She willed them still, only to feel the tremor move to her legs.

Natasha dropped into a chair, setting down the postcard and the tablet. As efficiently as she could manage, she typed in the address. It matched a cabin retreat twenty minutes further into the Catskills. Words like 'secluded' and 'romantic' jumped off the page, words that she'd once associated with the practicalities of assassinations. Her fingers felt the curve of her lips. She was smiling.

Her out of body experience followed her to her closet, where she lamented her utilitarian choices of cotton and spandex, denim and leather. She should have spotted the dress bag hanging off the bathroom door a minute and a half sooner.

Later on, she was going to have a long talk with Tony about boundaries, but for now she slid green silk over her head with a feeling akin to relief. In the mirror, she looked like a woman who had a genuine shot at a starry-eyed reunion with a lover lost and found.

Natasha had to make do with a branded Avengers duffle as her overnight bag, which she had just zipped up when there was a knock on her door.

On the other side was Wanda, whose startled eyes flared red. One hand found her mouth, the other her stomach. On someone else's face, Natasha could read the joy she must be feeling, the fear, too; the combination of which made hope. It was difficult to look directly at.

To her unspoken question, Wanda breathed out, "It can wait," and spun to lean on the wall.

Natasha knew fifty-seven different ways to escape the Facility undetected, but the fastest route to the garage brought her past the largest common room — Sam, Scott, Hope, Maria, Nick, and the Vision. Not the best crowd for keeping a secret, but, then, she'd had a lifetime of that kind of thing already.

Scott spotted her first, giving her an ineffectual wolf-whistle. Vision mimicked the gesture, his pitch so high everyone winced. He apologized profusely.

Pinky rubbing out his ear, Sam asked, "Who's the target?"

Natasha made it to the elevator. "No target. Date," she said, managing casual. Deadpan would have been better, but her nerves were all over the place.

It still got a reaction — a drawn out, "Aw," from Scott, a, "Get it, girl," from Hope as she turned a page. Sam stood up with his hands on his hips. "I been asking you out since the day we met, Romanoff."

"I never heard you ask her out," Scott said.

"Man, look into these eyes. I don't gotta say anything."

Scott made a show of gazing into them. "You really don't."

Maria and Nick came over to frame the elevator doors as Natasha stepped inside.

"I'll put Banner back on the roster," Maria said, her own tablet in hand.

Natasha faltered. Apprehension was an emotion she had no trouble placing. "Don't wait up," was all she said.

The skin around Nick's eye patch crinkled. "About damn time."

•

There were lot of questions, a lot of variables at play, and Natasha ran through every single one on the drive up. Natasha chewed on her lip a while before giving in and calling her informant. The backdrop of the video revealed that Tony was behind a bar, a fact that offered no clarity.

"What kind of person doesn't have magnets on their fridge?" Tony had long since stopped answering her calls with any kind of pleasentries.

"Tell me," she said, turning up the volume on the steering wheel.

"What ever could you be referring to?" Tony asked. He picked up his phone and began texting.

Natasha's thumb hovered over the disconnect button. "I will call Pepper. I know you told her."

"Oh, right, right. Bruce is back. You wanna know about that?"

She took a turn so hard gravel shot up.

Tony let out a dramatic sigh. "It's all very anticlimactic. I found him skulking around the Tower this morning. I'm furious with him. You might reiterate that for me."

Her grip on the wheel tightened. "Skulking?"

"You know, hoodie, sunglasses. He was having a cup of coffee at the café across the street. Said he missed it." With grudging respect he added, "Nothing and then, blip, right there on the radar."

Several reasons to do it that way. Best-case scenario, he wanted to give Tony a chance to process before the face-to-case. Worst-case — well, Bruce didn't have a lot of practice with elegant farewells, did he?

"You're not giving me anything, Stark."

"Well, Romanoff, that's kind of the idea. I swear, between you and Pepper — Why does no one appreciate a good surprise anymore? Am I the last true romantic on Earth? Is this yet another cross I must bear alone?"

Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose and almost missed the final turn.

"You're there," Tony said, buried in his phone again, thumbs going a mile a minute. "Find out for yourself."

The side road ended in front of the very cabin pictured on the front of the postcard. White curtained windows were open to the early evening breeze. Natasha eased the standard-issue dark gray Sedan in next to the black 1963 Jaguar Mark X Bruce had always insisted he was just borrowing from Tony. Three suitcases and several stacks of books were piled in the backseat.

Anxiety rippled. "Bruce doesn't pack."

"He'd said you'd do this. You're 'gathering intel' when you should be — " Tony got right up into the camera " — going in there." His voice softened a fraction. "Do you want him to think you don't want to?"

Natasha shut off the car but got no further. She knew if she lost her grip on the wheel the tremors would return. A remembered ruler splintered across small white knuckles; involuntary motion was unacceptable. Low and quiet, more to herself, she said, "There's something wrong with me."

"That nausea twitterpating in your stomach?" Tony finished typing and set his phone on the bar. "They don't call it 'lovesick' for nothing."

Movement at one of the windows drew her laser-focus. She fought the absurd urge to duck behind the dash like she was some amateur caught by a mark.

She froze instead, only her heart pounding, her eyes widening at the sight of Bruce — linen suit pressed, hair rumpled — coming to stand at the nearest window. His gentlest smile played over his lips. He reached out to touch the glass with his fingertips. Natasha didn't dare blink.

"How do you feel now?" Tony asked, smug grin audible.

"You know that feeling you get," Natasha murmured, trying to her damnedest to articulate the mass of emotions that were at once weight and relief, "when something's so adorable that you just want to kill it?"

"No! You are terrify— " A frustrated noise swallowed that sentiment, followed by another. Then Tony said, rapid-fire, "I highly recommend you see your doctor about that, goodbye."

Natasha was left in the car with only the sound of her unsteady breaths and the dry sting of her unblinking eyes. Bruce's mouth curled up. He dropped his hands in his pockets, his head in a nod. He indicated with a shoulder that he would be further in then disappeared from her view. If there was an emotional intelligence that Bruce excelled at, it was knowing when to give people space.

And now the anger, the guilt she'd thought she'd gotten over all those months ago returned to join the melee. Great. She bounced her forehead against the steering wheel.

•

Eventually, Natasha did get out of the car. She made it as far as the hood of Bruce's car, where sat against the windshield, arms a vice around her knees. The first story of the cabin was one open room, giving her an unobstructed view from the living room to the kitchen, where Bruce was chopping and stirring.

His back was to her, and he'd taken off his jacket to roll up his sleeves. He'd been self-conscious at first and, no doubt, a touch weirded out. Now his shoulders bounced to the music he must be listening to. Opera, classic rock — big band, she'd bet, for this occasion.

And it was an occasion. Bruce was cooking eggplant parmigiana, which he only did when his mood was up. And he'd refilled his glass of white wine, which he wouldn't allow if he weren't sure of his control.

Natasha relaxed into a cross-legged position. Bruce moved to set the table, allowing her to watch his face. There was still tension there, and she got the impression his eyes were darting to the widow. She wasn't the only one who'd been waiting all this time.

Dinner prepared, Bruce approached the window again. Natasha echoed his gentle smile from earlier. She raised one finger to the sky, streaked with color. "Sun's getting real low," she mouthed.

"Meet you there," he mouthed in return. The other half of the lullaby. The part that brought him back to her.

The key to the Jaguar was in the visor, like always. Natasha drove the path behind the cabin, parking a few feet back from the edge of a ridge.

She leaned against the hood, her skin alive with excitement.

A few minutes later Bruce sat beside her, bumping their hips. Like old times was nice, but she'd been aching for forward momentum for months and months.

Natasha wrapped her arms under his, tucked her head below his chin, and inhaled him like she'd wanted to do on countless sunsets but hadn't for reasons that came down to fear of the unknown. The urge to kiss away her regret was almost overwhelming, but the delay of satisfaction was its own peculiar pleasure.

His hands, as unsteady as her own, rubbed over her skin and his lips pressed against her hair, reminding her how infrequently she allowed touch and also how much it meant to her.

The stayed in that embrace, listening to each other's breathing, holding on with everything they had, until the arc of the sun dipped out of their view.

"No green refraction," Natasha observed.

"Guess we'll have to check again tomorrow night."

She tightened her arms around him, and his chuckle rumbled against her cheek.

"Tony texted that you wanted to squish me to death. He didn't seem to get the compliment."

Natasha lifted her smile so he could feel it against his neck. "Compliment or not, it was brave of you to come out. I promised you suffering."

"You're a compelling reason to do a lot of uncharacteristic things." Bruce kissed her head so tenderly Natasha's eyelids squeezed shut.

"Like get your shit together?"

He snorted. "'Go be a hero' was a lot more inspiring, but essentially."

"You remember that?" She held her breath.

"I remembered a lot of things the Big Guy did once we started the lullaby."

'Big Guy' — oh, God, she couldn't be more relieved. Natasha pressed her lips to the column of his throat, the tendons that joined his neck and shoulders. "You never told me," she accused between kisses.

"Did I have to?" He asked, his voice dropping low. "I was so exposed to you from the start."

The soft noise he made when she undid a button to drop a kiss in the hollow of his throat was so good she undid three more.

"So was I," Natasha admitted.

His hands drew the hair back from her face. "For the longest time, you were gathering intel on me."

"I'll always be like that," she warned, past hating herself for what she'd been made but unable to stand illusions.

Natasha raised her head, finally meeting Bruce's gaze up close. Naked adoration shone back at her.

Bruce's mouth twitched like a shrug. "Having my shit together is a relative concept. But I did get to a point where the future — " His whole face twitched and his chin ducked toward his lap. "Our future, if you still — Anyway, it seemed…" His eyes angled up, pleading for rescue.

"Seemed what?" she prompted, revisiting that suffering promise.

His smile broke her heart and fused it back together in the space of three syllables: "Possible."

Natasha took his face in her hands and showed him just how possible. Their lips pressed together, their breaths fused before they opened to explore each other's mouths. This kiss was slow and intense. A direct contrast to their first kiss, which had been a rush job, the whole world crumbling above their heads.

When they came up for air, she asked, "Sure you're not gonna push me over that ridge?" Their bodies were leaned flush against each other. "I might have it coming."

Bruce anchored his arms around her waist. "I chose to change way before I hit the ground. I understood why you did it." His brows knitted, and she pressed her lips to them. "Did you understand why I left?"

"I got that you made a choice. I hoped it would be good for you." She gave him the closest approximation to stern she could muster with her head spinning. "But I was pissed."

Both chastised and amused, Bruce said, "I guess I wouldn't like you when you're angry."

Natasha put heat and promise behind her grin. "You might just." His Adam's apple bobbed. She buried her fingers into thick, soft curls. "We'll save that for later. Right now I want more 'Welcome back, I might squeeze the life out of you.'"

Bruce didn't need to be told twice. He pulled her in for another consuming kiss. While his hands edged the hem of her dress, her fingers found the rest of his buttons. Her hands stayed in his hair, on his chest, while he skimmed the back of her thighs. Bruce was a vocal kisser, the noises in the back of his throat a distinct turn-on. He groaned when his fingers brushed the dampening juncture of her thighs.

His muscles readied, but Natasha stopped him from lifting her by pinning him to the hood of the Jaguar. His eyebrows shot up. What an inconsistent prude he was.

"The brochure did advertise seclusion," she pointed out, feeling against her stomach how much he wanted her.

"It's just — there's champagne chilling inside," Bruce managed, though he made no objections to continuing their kiss.

Natasha hummed against his mouth.

"I laid out — Mm." He sucked in a breath as she nipped at his lip. "I laid out rose petals on the bed." He sounded almost embarrassed.

"That'll be nice," she said, pleased by the gesture, the cliche, and the presumption. "But think of all those long talks we had sitting on this car." She put her hands on the hood to lean over him. "All the moments we should have seized." With the colors of the sky haloing her hair and her breasts threatening to fall from her dress, she knew she must have made a compelling image.

She let Bruce lift her this time, from the backs of her knees so she could clamp her thighs around his hips. Her fingers gripping his shoulders, their mouths working each other's skin, he walked around to set her down where the angle of the hood aligned their bodies seamlessly.

At Natasha's urging, Bruce entered her with the barest of preamble but with infinite slowness. She hooked her legs around him, giving him just enough space for strokes, deep and filling. Still mostly clothed, they rocked together. Time enough later on to discover each other's bodies with thorough appreciation. Bruce was solid, present. No more missed windows.

Natasha gripped his shoulders and neck. Her thighs quavered with an involuntary motion that, spurred by Bruce's dexterity, shook her at her core. She refused to let him ease up until his body, his voice were wracked with shudders. They held each other through them.

When their muscles were under their power once more, Bruce carried her through to the cabin. He brought her to the bathroom upstairs, where they undressed each other and demonstrated their admiration with their hands and lips.

Under the warm spray of water Bruce hugged her to him, squeezing with such force that her feet lifted from the tile. "This feeling," he said in her ear, "is called 'cute aggression.'" He explained the neurobiology behind the phenomenon, never letting go. Natasha traced his lips with her fingers, wanting in equal parts for him to shut up and kiss her dizzy and to never stop telling her in so many words how well he understood her.

•

After dinner, which was enjoyed in matching robes, Natasha led Bruce out onto the screened in porch to listen to the crickets.

On the settee, Bruce drew her into his lap. They'd hardly broken contact all evening, but it was still such a relief to have him secure beneath her.

His head rested against her chest. "I missed this." His tone was of puzzled awe, and she knew where he was coming from.

She held him, her face in his hair. "I missed you so much I made friends with Tony."

Bruce groaned, making her laugh. Then he said, "I narrated letters to you everywhere I went."

She tugged his hair. "And yet you only managed one line per postcard?"

Bruce kissed a trail up her chest and neck. "I agonized over those lines, the first one, especially. I must've bought sixteen postcards. I didn't — I mean, we never really…" He eyed her, sheepish.

This time around she did take pity on him. "You mean normal people don't plan on running away together without having even admitted they'd been going on dates?"

"In my albeit limited experience, no."

Natasha pretended to consider that. "Well, if we've been doing it wrong this long, we might as well keep doing it our own way."

Bruce pressed a reverent kiss over her fluttering heartbeat. He met her eyes and gave her his most charming smile. "Not to be a traditionalist, but can I still call you my girlfriend?"

The phrase 'my girlfriend' had never held any meaning for her until just that moment. She wanted to ask him say it again. Instead she asked, "Are you or are you not staying?" Natasha softened her tone but not her position. "I'm an Avenger, Bruce."

"Me and the Big Guy, too," he said and she could see in his whole demeanor that he meant it.

Honest heart to hearts had always been Natasha's vague idea of a libido-killer, so it was strange and amazing to her how much pleasure he could give her with words alone and how fast that pleasure set her off on a search for more. She kissed Bruce hard, eliciting a low rumble from his throat that she took as encouragement for her to grip his hair. Natasha was learning the language of his pleasure and, letting go of any notions of performance, her own.

— • —

Waking up in a bed of rose petals with Natasha wound around his naked body like a python was always the best-case scenario. Bruce was not the kind of person for whom best-case scenarios came true — and yet.

They spent their days and nights drinking each other in. That Natasha had forgiven him was a miracle, but he could see the damage he'd done in the way her eyes tracked him if he left arm's reach. They talked over everything — the Accords and the reunification of the Avengers, his meetings with Stephen Strange; the modifications to her Widow's Bite and the best varieties of dal-bhat-tarkari to be found in Nepal.

The topic of the immediate future kept until day four, when Bruce turned around from making crepes to find Natasha at the far window. They were sharing his pajamas, him in the pants and her in the shirt, loosely buttoned. She was sipping tea from a mug and staring out at what could only be Tony's Jaguar and the things piled in the back.

"If this had gone another way," Natasha finally asked him when they were seated in front of their breakfast, "what would you have done?" Under the table, her bare feet were stacked on his.

"Tony offered me my old rooms back, of course. But I hoped even if we couldn't — " The urge to withdraw creeped up on him, but he squashed it back by taking Natasha's hand. He told her, "I wanted to be at the Facility any way you'd have me."

Her fingers and toes massaged his skin. "I have to warn you, space is gonna be tight when you move into my rooms."

Bruce scooted his chair closer to hers. "Sounds perfect."

"You're not gonna say that when you see the size of my kitchen — " she said, but he made his position clear with a kiss.

Leaving the bed and breakfast at the crack of dawn the next morning was a struggle, but their shared desire for forward momentum compelled them. They left the Avengers vehicle to be picked up later and drove in the Jaguar, which they assumed would grant them twenty more minutes of solitude.

They should have known Tony would eventually find a way.

The center of the dash rose and flipped, revealing a screen and Tony's grinning face. "The lovebirds have flown the coop."

Bruce was horrified at the desecration and ran his hands along the dash for more damage. "This is how you plan to make me suffer?"

"You're lucky I didn't put a tracker in you, Banner. You're a flight risk."

"I'm really not," Bruce replied, moving his hand from the dash to slide back into Natasha's. She was playing it cool, looking off into the distance in her mirrored sunglasses, but the curve of her mouth betrayed her.

"I can't help but notice," Tony said, "that you're headed back to the Facility and not the Tower."

Bruce felt Natasha lace her fingers through his tighter, changing the angle so Tony could see it. Natasha acting possessive toward him made Bruce want to hide a grin against the steering wheel, but he kept it together for her sake. She had a reputation to keep up, after all.

"Oh, sure," Tony said, "That looks cozy, but don't let her fool you, Bruce. You're under house arrest and she's your new warden."

"I'll come visit, Tony," Bruce promised.

Tony eyed Natasha, and her smile warmed. "We'll blow shit up," she agreed.

He sat back in what looked like Pepper's chair at Stark Industries HQ. He rested his hands on the back of his head. "So, you two are going to play domestic at a quasi-military facility while saving the world every weekday afternoon?"

"That's phase two," Bruce said, looking over at Natasha, who looked back. "We're gathering intel on phase three."

Tony opened his hands. "Well, friends, for your phase two comforts, you are welcome." He waved at them. "That'll make sense in about ten minutes."

It was just past five in the morning when Bruce and Natasha pulled into the facility, too early, Natasha said, for the auxiliary teams to be out training and for any of the early rising Avengers to be frequenting the common rooms.

Natasha led Bruce by the hand through the halls. They had a few tight spaces to christen before making their debut, which she agreed should be as understated as possible. Bruce was already kissing her neck when Natasha scanned them into her suite.

She stopped in the entranceway, then pulled him in and shut the door. She disappeared around a corner. Bruce wandered into the kitchen. "I thought you said your kitchen was tiny?"

In another room, Natasha was making a show of annoyance that he didn't buy for a second. "That idiot had the walls knocked down. We're definitely going to have a chat about boundaries."

Bruce slipped an Avengers Tower postcard down from the absurd number of magnets that held it to the fridge. The back of the card read, 'The words you're looking for are Thank You, Tony.' Underneath that, in Rhodey's precise handwriting, was written, 'We did the actual work. — Literally everyone else on earth.'

And below that still, in Steve's artist's hand, 'Welcome home.'

Not trusting himself to speak, Bruce flipped the postcard to show Natasha when she came back into the kitchen. She let it flutter onto the table and jumped into his arms. Home.

— • —


End file.
